


A true lover stays

by Inflinty



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bellamione - Freeform, Bellamione Cult Discord Game, Discord: Bellamione Cult, F/F, Happy Ending, Princess!Hermione, cursed!bellatrix, fairy tale AU, idk dont even ask me, old!bellatrix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 14:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18143597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inflinty/pseuds/Inflinty
Summary: The Grangers were longing for a child, but what's the price of having one?





	A true lover stays

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Fairy Tale
> 
> Blame the Bellamione Discord's Game...

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a wondrous kingdom laid with big, opened fields, billowy rivers and mysterious valleys where the trees reached the sky. A royal couple ruled over the lands, their people loved and cherished them. The Grangers, because that was their name, were kind to the noble lords and ladies, helped the poor and rewarded the hard worker peasants.

They had only one heartache; they couldn’t have a child. The guards and maids found the queen wiping tears off from her beautiful face more and more times, and the king was usually spotted staring out of a window with a longing gaze. 

One day, the royal couple summoned all the couriers, and ordered them to promulgate his words all around the country.

“I order every soldier, merchant, and farmer, men and women, to search for a way to help us; help us find a way to hold a new-born child in our arms.”

The words spread quickly, and soon crowds gathered and day and night searched for anything useful. On the seventh day, an old hag walked up to the Grangers in the throne room. It was said, that the woman was  a witch and  a hundred years old. A thousand wrinkles rounded her eyes, when she smiled, only three black teeth were still in their places. Her ragged coat was patchy and muddy, and didn’t really had a good smell either.

“I can help you” she said with her old, raspy voice. She fished out a fistful of strange, luminous seeds from one of her pockets. “These are golden beans from the Land of the Unknown and hold great power. Eat one, and it is guaranteed that you will have a child.”

“Thank you for your great help.” the king humbly nodded and bent over to take the beans from the hag’s shaking hands. “How may I repay your service? Is it gold what you desire? A noble rank perhaps?”

“I don’t need those things” she refused. “But when your child reaches the age of eleven, I will come for him or her. If your heir serves me for seven years, the child may return to you.”

Although uncertainly, but the couple agreed on those terms.  First the queen, then the king as well shook hands with the  witch , but as soon as King Granger let go of the bony fingers, the woman...  snapped her fingers and...  disappeared.

The royals did as the strange elder told them to. The queen swallowed one glowing golden bean, and spent a lovely night with her husband. A month later, they were sure that the strange seeds worked and soon the queen’s stomach grew. On a cold, windy autumn day, the heir to the Granger dynasty, a princess was born.

The new-born had rich brown curls, just like her father, and warm, brown eyes just like her mother. They named her Hermione.

Hermione was a curious and intelligent child. She liked to spend time riding horses and walk in the nature, but she always felt more at home between the tall bookshelves of the library. She learned to read at a young age too, and her father happily hired the best professors from across the world to teach the girl every matter of subjects.

The years passed, but the pair happily ignored their parts of the deal, too occupied with spending time with their daughter, instead of thinking about losing her. But before the day of the princess’s eleventh birthday, a raven came to the couple, and spoke with the old hag’s rough voice.

_ “Don’t forget your promise _ _... _ _ ”  _

They held each other as they cried and cursed the time and the old woman who would take their only daughter away. They didn’t dare to break their deal, and so that night they explained Hermione how and why she had to leave tomorrow with the witch. 

“Don’t worry father, I understand why I have to leave.” Hermione said, her eyes shone with intelligence, kindness and a hint of sadness too. “Don’t worry, seven years, and we will meet again.” 

On the next day, another raven arrived, and in a swirl of dark shadows, it transformed into the hag. She walked up to the Grangers; whose daughter was already dressed up in a traveling coat, she gripped a haversack in her hands.

“Hermione,” the witch greeted her, even though no one mentioned the princess’s name to her. “Say farewell to your parents. But don’t you worry, if you serve me well, seven years later you may return.”

The princess hugged her parents, and they said tearful goodbyes to each other. Then Hermione turned to the woman who flashed her a smile, which was supposed to be friendly, but the lack of teeth made it quite scary. But the girl wasn’t one to back down just because of the dreadful appearance of the witch. Without hesitation, she accepted the outstretched hand of the woman, and the strange duo walked out of the castle. Through their ways, Hermione said goodbye to her friends, the maids and the guards as well.

Once they made their way out, the witch turned to the girl.

“If we travel at this pace, we will never reach my hut, which is beyond the seventh mountain of the kingdom” she said and at the awe of Hermione, she performed a strange movement of hands, creating a green light. When she finished, a broom appeared in her hands. "Best if we use this. Come, climb up behind me and grab my back.”

The girl did as the hag told her. As she climbed up, she yelped, as the broom ascended high to the sky. She grabbed the woman’s back, and casted nervous but curious glances down, the landscape glided below them. The witch in front of her let out a cackle. When they crossed the seventh mountain of the kingdom, the broom slowed down and carefully landed on the ground. In front of them stood the small, cosy hut of the witch.

They climbed down and the princess turned to the hag, but she wasn’t an old crippled witch anymore. In front of Hermione stood a tall woman, instead of her coat of rags she wore a long black dress. The woman had pitch black eyes under long eyelashes, hair like flowing onyx cascaded down on her shoulders. She rubbed her shoulders, ignorant of the girl who was staring at her with plate sized eyes.

“Damn, I swear to the seventh hell, I still feel my back.”

“But... How is this possible?” Hermione asked in confusion. “You were an old woman just before!”

The witch looked down on her, like she had just noticed the girl.

“Magic, child.” she answered with a smirk. “A curse to be more precise. Everyone outside of the magical circle of this house will see me as an old hag.”

“Can’t it be broken?” she asked.

“If I could break it, do you think I would be roaming around like a crone?” She narrowed her eyes, and the princess felt stupid for asking such an obvious question.

The woman opened the door of the small hut and stepped inside. She snapped her fingers, and at the movement, candles lit up, and the calming sound of the cracking fire came from the fireplace. The whole house seemed far bigger in the inside. 

“Make yourself at home, girl.” she called back to Hermione behind her shoulder, who was still frozen in amazement. 

“Can you teach me?” she accidentally blurted out forgetting her manners, so she added “Please?”

“Well, since you’re stuck with me for seven years, I can try.” she shrugged.

“You were the one who asked for it.” she shot  back.

“Not because I needed a kid running around in the house.” she answered with slight irritation in her voice. “I can’t talk about it, so stop asking.”  

“Alright” Hermione murmured to herself, feeling slightly hurt but didn’t force the subject. “How may I call you?”

“Bellatrix.” 

In the following days, weeks and months she spent hours practicing magic with Bellatrix.  She would teach her how to bring up the power inside her and how to control it. First, she learned the most basic spells and incantations, by the end of the day she was able to lit a candle or filling up a bottle with water.  Bellatrix made it clear on the first day that she didn’t like repeating herself, not that she needed to. Hermione felt like she was  _ born  _ to use this newly learned power, although she had a long journey ahead of her. 

Her days wasn’t just about practicing magic. She was the one who cleaned the house, but luckily, she found some useful cleaning spells which made her work a lot easier. She also helped the dark witch with her potions, and took long walks in the nearby forests to gather herbs and plants for the woman.

“I can’t go to the forest with this curse on me, it would take me forever to even bent down” she claimed. 

 Bellatrix proudly showed her library, filled with books about spells, potions, or famous witches and wizards. She also chose books for the girl to learn from them, and Hermione happily read them.

She also had to get food for the two of them. There was a town not too far from the house, she visited the market here, bought bread from the baker, meat from the butcher, fruits and vegetables from the greengrocer. Bellatrix casted a disguise charm on her, so the locals wouldn’t recognize their princess. The girl liked to spend time with the people of the town, and while she was never bored with the dark witch around, it was good to spend time with others too.

But after a while, she started to miss her parents. She knew visiting them wasn’t an option. One night she felt so homesick, that her tears soaked the pillow. She sobbed, until she heard the door creak and she knew that the witch probably heard her cries. The girl heard her muffled steps, until she felt a warm hand on her back.

“I know you miss your parents” she whispered as her hand circled on her back. “I wish I didn’t have to take you away from them, but believe me, that was the only solution. For you, for me.”

“Is it connected to your curse?” the girl pried with one eye. Bellatrix sighed, but not because of irritation this time, like before. 

“I can’t talk about it.” she answered finally. “They can’t visit you, nor you can visit them. But you can write to them. One of my owls will take the letter to them.”

“Thank you.” Hermione whispered.

“Yeah, yeah” the girl couldn’t see it in the dark, but knew that Bellatrix waved her hand like she wanted to brush off a fly. “Sleep now.”

She kept stroking her back until Hermione slipped into a sweet dream. The next day, she wrote a letter to her parents, and a few days later an owl brought her answer too. 

Years passed, and as the girl improved her skills, she matured as well. Gone was the bushy mane she always complained about, now her hair curled into neat waves. When she visited the nearby town, the boys would complement her and she often received flowers too. Sadly, she didn’t grow too tall, she was still at least a head shorter than Bellatrix, who liked to remind her of that.

“Ease your shoulders.” she heard from behind her back. “You’ll have kinks in them again.”

Hermione tried, but then her hands were in an uncomfortable p o sition , and thus her charm wavered. 

“I can’t do it in that pose” she complained.  

She was practicing a particularly difficult charm, she tried to control a giant ball of flames. Bella said it’s good for controlling the flowing of magic. She felt two slim hands join hers as the witch stepped close behind her. Her arm tingled, and her heart started to beat faster. The woman guided her hands in the right direction.

“See,” the dark witch murmured in her ear and the girl shuddered. “It’s much easier.”

Her relationship with the dark witch changed somehow. Maybe because before, Bellatrix usually talked to her about how to use magic, or how to brew a certain potion. Back then she treated her like a child, which she was, but now they talked more and more, sometimes all night. She hadn’t realised before that Bellatrix had a funny, or more like a sarcastic side, or they had a lot of things in common. Sometimes they could understand each other without words. At one point, she accidentally called her “Bella” but the witch didn’t mind it.

More and more times she caught herself on staring at Bella. The way she carried her hips, her high aristocratic cheekbones, her lustrous lips. She blushed in embarrassment, but she couldn’t help her thoughts.

Sometimes she noticed Bella’s stare on her, but when she did, the dark witch would turn away. When they spoke, Bellatrix held a hint of sadness in her eyes. It was obvious that they had grown to like each other, but they both knew that one more year and  Hermione  will return to her parents, to her castle, to her kingdom. She knew she would miss the woman, and vice versa.

Eventually, her last day of serving the witch came. They ate breakfast in silence. The princess saw the sadness on the woman, even though her face was hidden behind the mane of black curls. The girl felt a lump in her throat, she wished she wouldn’t have to part from her. 

“Alright, are you ready?” Bella sighed after finishing their meal. 

“Yes.” she whispered.

The woman nodded and waved for the girl to follow her. She led her outside of the house, to the border of her curse.

“There is one more thing.” Bellatrix quietly started. “I know your answer, but it’s a question I have to ask from you. And whatever your decision is, I won’t blame you.”

"Do you want to return to your kingdom? To your family?” she asked, looking Hermione in the eye for the first time on the day. She smiled, but her eyes showed sadness. “If you do, then we’ll never see each other again. But if you wish to stay... then you can never meet them again. You would be stuck with me as a company” she joked.

“So... what do you say?”

“I..” the princess honestly didn’t know what to do. She missed her parents, of course she did. She missed the castle where she spent the first eleven years of her life. But... leaving this place? Leaving Bella? Not see her again? 

“Don’t worry, I understand if you want to leave” Bella said, but she heard her voice slightly wavering. “You’re a princess, you’ll have your kingdom to command...”

“I want to stay.”

“ Wha -what?” Bellatrix  _ stammered,  _ a thing as long as Hermione remembered have never done. “Bu-but, your life, your kingdom, your parents...”

“And still,” the girl cut her off, “All those things would mean nothing to me, without you.” she blushed, but that was the truth. “I would like to stay, Bella.”

She saw tears escaping the witch’s eyes, and Bella rushed to her and embraced her. The woman bent down and...

Captured her lips into a soft kiss. 

Hermione’s heart was beating strong against her chest, and she feared she would collapse and faint from the pure love and joy. 

When they parted, the princess had to close her eyes, because in that moment, a bright gold light appeared around the area, and slowly cleared away the invisible area of the curse.

“You broke it. “Bella whispered as she caressed Hermione’s face, tears streaming down on her cheeks. “You broke the curse, Hermione.”

“What? How?”

“A wizard cursed me a long time ago. He said that in every ten years, someone would cross my path and stay with me for seven years, then leave.” she explained. “But, if anyone would rather stay with me, believing that time would mean forever, then the curse would break. And you did it, Hermione, because, well I don’t know why, everyone had left before you...”

“Because I love you” the girl simply smiled. The woman laughed, although she still sobbed. 

Bellatrix wiped her tears, and took a step back from the princess, although she still held her hands. “And I love you too.”

“Come, let's walk out of the barrier.” Hermione excitedly ran, bringing Bellatrix with her. The witch didn’t have the time to be afraid of,  _ “what if the curse was still active”. _

As she stepped out and waited for her body change.... nothing happened. She kissed Hermione, who, for some reasons, shied away after their lips met.

“What’s wrong?” Bella worriedly asked.

“I was thinking...” the girl started. “Would you... like to return with me to the palace?”

_ “Of course.”  _ the witch smiled, relieved that Hermione didn’t want to leave her. 

Still on that day, the two of them returned to the palace. Hermione had a tearful reunion with her parents, who held their daughter  tight.  Bellatrix was warmly welcomed in the royal family.

Soon their wedding was held, and kings and queens from all across the world were invited. They celebrated for seven days, all people of the kingdom visited and gave their best wishes.

 After her parents, Hermione and Bellatrix followed them on the throne, and they lived happily ever after.


End file.
